As the popularity for sports and games continues to grow, there exists a need for affordable, portable scoreboards that allow players and spectators to easily see the score status of the game. Most scoreboards commonly found in use today are large units that are permanently mounted at a venue. These units are expensive and, therefore, are only used in limited venues and fields, and cannot be easily transported to other fields or locations. Portable scoreboards have more general application because they allow the scoreboard to be set up and used in any location. But as presently configured, portable scoreboards are limited in their application.
Many types of portable scoring indicators or scoring devices are currently available, but are relatively impractical for games which require double digit scoring capability. The majority of games played have typical scores that can exceed the display capability of single digit (0-9). Seldom do games require more than double digit capability (00-99). Flip cards, or removable cards, are space efficient; however, they are cumbersome to use and change and are susceptible to damage. Pointers and pegboards are simple to use, but require that all of the numbers be shown, thereby increasing the overall size or limiting the maximum score. Scoring drums require sufficiently large diameter to accommodate all of the digits on their circumference, thus limiting their ability to be used in portable scoreboards.
Many scoreboards utilize discs or wheels with digits printed around the wheel. For low scoring games, a single score wheel design is effective. For higher scoring games, the wheel diameter grows increasingly large with the need to display higher score values. An alternative is to use two wheels, one for the first digit and another for the second digit. This arrangement provides higher scoring capabilities, but overall size of the scoreboard grows, particularly when there are two teams, each requiring two wheels to display the double digit scores. Some wheels can be arranged in a manner so that they overlap, thus reducing the overall size of the scoreboard, but the amount of overlap and relative position of the wheels is limited by the interference of the wheel's axis with other wheels.
In order to be effective, a scoreboard must be easily readable by players and spectators from an appropriate distance that varies based upon the game and the venue. Large, easy-to-read characters and numbers are therefore desirable. There is trade off between large numbers and the overall size of the scoreboard, thus, its overall portability. What is desired is a readily visible scoreboard with relatively large scoring indicia that is low cost, portable and compact enough to conveniently carry to and from each new game location.
It has therefore been an objective of this invention to create a low cost, portable, readily visible scoreboard that can be easily and conveniently transported to game locations and which can be easily stored when not in use.
Still another objective of this invention has been to create a portable scoreboard that is easy to operate, portable and easily mountable upon an available mounting device as, for example, a backstop of a baseball diamond.